The metal vapor they inhale breaks them down to such a degree that, along with these heavy tasks, and the copious sweat which the subterranean heat provokes and the excessive cold that they receive upon leaving the mine, they greet the dawn so languid and mortal that they appear to be cadavers.

Pedro Vicente Cañete y Dominguez, Chronicles of the Imperial City of Potosí, 1714.

And so the hospital is full of Indians, and every day fifty die, because of this wild beast that swallows them alive.